Alabama Postage Stamp

At SCAD, in my Illustration Markets class for assignment three, the course was tasked with creating an advertisement of their choice. I made a postage stamp since I am a former postal worker and wanted to call back to a former career path that I left behind in favor of my passion. I will present my process from thumbnails to final. 

One requirement was creating twenty thumbnails. I based my state selection on an article by Forbes about the 20 most popular states to live in. I originally wanted it to be cute, minimalistic, simple vector designs with the state birds wearing their corresponding state flowers as hats. 

During the first round of critique, the professor does not look at our thumbnails since he is training us only to show the thumbnails we wish to present to the client in value comp form. However, he noticed the different birds and advised me to focus only on one bird and one state instead of spreading myself thin. I chose to use my state, which was not presented in the article at his suggestion. So I did some additional research on the state of Alabama and created more thumbnails. The green circled ones are the ones I was considering taking to value comps. 

With value comps, I chose three of the six favorites I selected. They were thumbnails 3, 4, and 6. In discussions, I was inspired by one of my fellow students to include an Alphonse Mucha-esque inspiration for the border design of the postage stamp. 

During the second round of critique, the professor advised that the stamps did not come off as being about Alabama but Mucha and that the flower hats on the birds gave a silly tone instead of a more serious one considering this was a postage stamp. I was advised to include more elements that highlight Alabama as a state. 

I chose to add more state-specific elements to the postage stamp that represent Alabama. With the state bird (yellow hammer) and state flower (camellia), I created the sketches to use on the stamp of Alabama's state fruit, the blackberry, the state nut (pecan), and the cotton plant since Alabama is known as the cotton state.

 I removed the flower from the bird's head and created a tight clean sketch with two color comps from those sketches.

During the third round of critique, I was advised by the professor to rearrange the objects within the stamp by placing all the elements at the base of the bird and enlarging the bird so that the composition is more balanced. 

I selected the second color comp because I liked those colors, but the professor advised that color comp 1 with purple made the bird stand out more. He stated that I to be very mindful of my values. 

While approaching the fourth round of critique, a WIP day, I showed the rearranged color comp and a more simplified background. Going into the final submission, the professor advised me to be more mindful of my reference material for the bird since the beak seemed off. Instead of drawing the work in Procreate, I leaned into Adobe Illustrator to focus on the form of the bird. 

I turned in my postage stamp with my mockup on the final critique day. Some elements of Procreate were left, like the cotton plant, pecans, and blackberries, but the background, shadows, bird, and flowers were done in Adobe Illustrator. 

The journey to creating this postage stamp was enlightening and fun. I enjoyed the process and am proud of the way it came out.